Deeplinks Blog posts about Privacy

The Nymwars rage on. Over the past several weeks Google has been engaged in a very public struggle with its users over its “real names” policy on Google+, prompting blog posts and editorials debating the pros and cons of allowing pseudonymous accounts on social networking sites. But there is one person for whom insisting on the use of real names on social networking sites is not enough. Unsurprisingly, that person is Facebook’s Marketing Director, Randi Zuckerberg. Speaking last week on a panel discussion about social media hosted by Marie Claire magazine, Zuckerberg said,

Despite serious privacy concerns being voiced by both Democratic and Republican leaders and by thousands of digital rights activists using EFF's Action Center, this afternoon the House Judiciary Committee voted 19 to 10 to recommend passage of H.R. 1981. That bill contains a mandatory data retention provision that would require your Internet service providers to retain 12 months' worth of personal information that could be used to identify what web sites you visit and what content you post online.

EFF has joined civil liberties and consumer organizations in publicly opposing H.R. 1981, a bill that would threaten online privacy and anonymous speech by requiring Internet service providers (ISPs) to retain logs of customer-identifying information that can be tied to the web sites that you read and the content that you post online.

The House Judiciary Committee will likely be voting this afternoon on whether to send the bill to the House floor, so there's still time to oppose this bill: contact your Representative now.

Watching the revolutions unfolding in the Arab world this springtime – and learning details first-hand from our friends on the ground – we at EFF struggled to find meaningful ways to support democratic activists and promote online freedom of expression. But we didn’t just want to lend a helping hand –we wanted to create a pathway so that anyone, anywhere in the world, could contribute to making the Internet more private and more resistant to censorship. From these discussions came our idea of launching the Tor Challenge.

Think you know what to do when law enforcement seeks access to your digital device? Test your skills with our online quiz. Then brush up on your knowledge with our Know Your Rights whitepaper.

We also highly recommend you print our one-page guide explaining what to do when the police ask for access to your device. Leave it by your workstation, tape it up in your server room, and slip a copy into your laptop case—anywhere you have sensitive information on a digital device.